UMN Researchers to Play Key Role in Study of Early Brain and Child Development

The co-directors of the University of Minnesota's Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB), a Consortium member center, will play a key role in the largest long-term study of early brain and child development in the United States. Michael Georgieff, along with Sylvia Wilson of the Institute of Child Development, is among the principal investigators for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) study, which will enroll roughly 7,500 pregnant people at the University of Minnesota and 27 other sites across the country and follow them and their children for up to 10 years. Damien Fair will be among those managing the longitudinal data collected in the HBCD study. The National Institutes of Health-sponsored study aims to provide a more complete picture of how the brain develops and is affected by exposure to substances and other environmental, social, and biological factors during early childhood. Read more on the MIDB website.